The Chesterton Town
Council has officially reserved the right to provide wastewater treatment
service to any areas in Duneland located within four miles of the town’s
corporate boundaries and not currently being served by any other sanitary
sewer provider.

Or--another way of
putting it--the Town Council has explicitly excluded and preempted all other
sanitary sewer providers from treating the wastewater of any new customers
in areas within four miles of Chesterton’s corporate boundaries.

The council did so
at a special meeting Thursday afternoon, when members voted 4-0 to approve
the ordinance on first reading, 4-0 to suspend the rules, then 4-0 to
approve the ordinance on final reading. Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th, was
not in attendance.

Town Attorney Chuck
Lukmann told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting that Indiana
Code 36-9-2 specifically grants certain “extraterritorial powers” to
municipalities within four miles of their corporate boundaries. Those powers
includes those related to public transportation, waterworks, and sewage
treatment.

Thus reads the
ordinance in question: the “Chesterton Town Council believes that the
exclusive regulation of sanitary sewer service inside and within four miles
of the town’s corporate boundaries promotes the logical growth of both the
town and its sanitary sewage utility, represents the most efficient means
for providing sanitary sewer service to new customers within the regulated
territory, and protects the town’s investment in infrastructure
improvements, particularly those infrastructure investments in the town’s
sanitary sewer utility.”

Accordingly, under
the new ordinance, the Town of Chesterton “has the exclusive power, control,
and jurisdiction to furnish, regulate, and provide sanitary sewer service to
new customers who are located within the regulated territory.”

The ordinance does
not apply to any entity which is currently providing sanitary
sewer service to property owners within four miles of the town’s corporate
boundaries. Under the ordinance, however, that entity is excluded
from expanding that service to any new customers within the so-called
regulated territory.

At the moment, and
practically speaking, the ordinance reserves the town’s right--and excludes
any other entity’s right--to provide sewer service to newly developed
property in unincorporated Liberty Township along the Ind. 49 utility
corridor. The ordinance also enforces the town’s right to provide sewer
service to the Fox Chase Farms subdivision off Meridian Road and the
Whispering Sands Mobile Home Community.

Settlement
Agreement

In other business,
the council voted 4-0 to approve a settlement agreement with ADS Logistics
of 116E 1100N, which--it turns out--has been overbilled by the Utility for a
number of years, by the amount of $41,000.

The settlement
agreement, which treated other unspecified issues as well, requires the town
to refund ADS Logistics a total of $15,000 and to credit the business a
further $15,000 on future bills.